


Prison Yard Loverboy

by oonaseckar



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men (Comicverse), X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Prison, F/M, Gen, M/M, Prison, Prison Sex, prison bitch
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-27
Updated: 2020-01-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:55:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22438327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oonaseckar/pseuds/oonaseckar
Summary: Prison isn't really Charles' kind of milieu, you know.  It's definitely not the country-club.
Relationships: Erik Lehnsherr/Charles Xavier
Comments: 6
Kudos: 35





	1. prison bitch

"What the fuck you think you say to me? You think you can get away with _saying_ that shit to me, bitch? Wanna see what that kind of mouth on you can get you?”

Charles hits the concrete of the exercise ground –- the prison-yard exercise ground –- face-first, and it surely doesn't do his face any favors. There's pain and grit and wetness, and he's pretty sure that his lip's split, and maybe his eyebrow cut too, as well as multiple grazes. That's even before lifting his head and taking a feel, and even less before pushing himself up and standing up again. He isn't even _thinking_ about doing that right now.

He stays down, because he has no idea what to say, and his new friend has a lot of other friends with him. And God damn, he'd _known_ it would be like this, when he'd been sentenced, when he'd gone down for embezzlement and fraud and insider trading and all of it. He'd especially known it when he'd been denied white-collar prison status, when it was made clear that he'd receive neither protection nor special privileges, and his lawyer Fredericks had pulled a pained face and given him a wincing half-look. In with the general population, and that meant nothing good.

But he hadn't known it would be like _this_. That he wouldn't even need to go looking for trouble. Hell, that it wouldn't even be enough to _avoid_ trouble, to keep his head down like everyone who was still willing to acknowledge his existence had advised him to do. That trouble would come looking for _him_.

This is his third day in prison. So far, he'd give the establishment three stars, at best. Cusiine rancid, service deplorable, clientèle boorish. Not his usual billionaire party-boy ambience at all: it doesn't remotely meet his normal standards.

The first two days weren't great: grunts and evil looks and cursing from anyone he ventured to even look at or try the most anodyne bit of social chit-chat on. But it seems like he was just being evaluated and checked out, .while a communal verdict was reached. The verdict is in, evidently. And it ain't good.

Christ, he hadn't said a _word_. Not one word, just walked out into the yard –- quiet, submissive, with his head down and not meeting anyone's eye –- when the bell rang for exercise –- and headed for one of the corners that was least populated normally, going by the previous two days. And that had, of necessity, entailed going by the Hispanic gang on the west side –- clumped together almost silently, some staring moodily at the ground, some discreetly smoking, some apparently openly dealing and all giving him menacing looks. Tattooed –- prison tats by and large –- wifebeatered under the regulation prison overalls, heavy boots on some that surely weren't regulation. He'd had a feeling that three or four of them were staring directly at him, but he'd had more sense than to lift his head to check. Just kept on going past, not slow, not hurrying, wishing himself invisible.

And he hadn't opened his mouth, doing it, because he wasn't an idiot. Well, maybe half an idiot, trusting Cain with his investments and his paperwork, and the new head of the family law firm, Shaw, with transfer of title of his funds, and his buddy Justin at his new investment advisors with authority to trade for him. Yes, clearly an idiot of many and various kinds. But not the kind of idiot who shoots his mouth off five feet away from a prison gang, half of whom are sharpening hidden blades with their teeth, and the other half stretching and smirking at the prospect of a show. There's a bally limit to anyone's idiocy, and Charles knows where it lies.


	2. if the boys wanna fight you better let 'em

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charles has a savior. Which he may learn to regret.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is Boys Are Back In Town, Thin Lizzy.

He hadn't needed to be, that was the trouble.

The Latinx gentlemen hadn't been near as intimidating as the next huddle along -- a heterogeneous bunch who appeared to spend a lot of time in the gym, judging by their physical development. And dressed much like a biker gang, which one could only imagine meant the guards were too intimidated to challenge them on it. And led by an individual everyone addressed, eyes lowered, as Beast. Beast was covered in blue tattoos, including his face.

Something flung out of the huddled mass of bodies, quicker than the eye could catch, had caught him on the shoulder and rattled on past onto the concrete of the exercise ground, and next thing he'd known a small but vicious looking inmate had him up against a wall, in his face and practically spitting in it. “My puzzle! Fifty dollar ivory puzzle my momma sent me, and you done broke it, asshole! What you say to me about that? What you gonna do to put that right?”

And Charles hadn't been able to get more than a glimpse of said puzzle out of the corner of his eye, as one of this threatening midget's buddies bent to pick it up, smirking and turning it over in big scarred hands. But it looked a lot more like two dollars' worth of plastic from a dime-store, even so.

And even so, he wasn't stupid enough to point this out. Nor stupid enough not to apologize for what he hadn't done in the first place. “I'm sorry,” he'd said, quickly. “Of course I'll reimburse...”

It had been an idiotic response: because of course the days of him being a rich man –- let alone a free one with access to his funds –- were long gone. Forgery of documents of title, and bad faith, and insider trading, had well put paid to that. Not on his part, of course. But he'd trusted the wrong people, and look where he was now.

It was also a response that served him no purpose in any case. Ignored, slammed down by more than one pair of hands, and with his face in the concrete, that was where it got him. And it's where he is now. This past five minutes is probably a snapshot of what he has to endure for the next twelve years in this hellhole, and Charles isn't sure if he can ever endure it and see the other side of his prison sentence.

It's the shrimp of a guy who's actually kneeling on his back, shaking at his neck and yelling in his ear, something about messing with shit that don't belong to him and how he's no bigshot now, no rich prettyboy in the papers and on the evening news. Now he ain't nothing or nobody but he's still got a pretty face but that ain't gonna do nothing good for him in this place, not until he learns to make nice and do nice things for people that actually count around this place... There's a lot more in that vein, a lot. It tunes out to a loud buzz of white noise in Charles' ears, and he thinks he might be about to pass out, and then maybe he does. Because it stops, abruptly.

The silence itself shouts as loudly as the mouthy little guy was doing, an instant previous. A little woozy, Charles looks up cautiously. From being crowded around him, urging the little fella on or helping him out with hands and boots, the inmates are suddenly tautly upright and alert, watching a spot on the other side of him. Except for the little guy. The little guy is slumped up against the exercise yard's wall. Pretty much like someone just threw him there.

And one of the bigger guys steps forward, pretty nearly right over Charles. He might as well not be there at all, and swiftly contemplates making a discreet getaway. Except where is there to go? He begins to rise cautiously, just the same: and takes a look at what they're all staring at, as the guy who seems to have elected himself spokesperson or leader says, “Yeah, Lehnsherr, you got a problem too? We dealing with this guy our own way, you think you got something to say about it?”

“Yes,” is the answer he gets. And Charles is still on his knees as he turns to see his savior. The voice is certainly grim enough, harsh like spurred metal, like something that could draw blood. And it comes from a guy he slightly recognizes, memorable enough to have caught the eye even on the basis of less than seventy-two hours as an inmate in this penitentiary. Sallow-skinned, unusually light greenish eyes, and taller than average, built like a long lean wall of muscle. A scar on his lip, a tattoo on his wrist, and an expression so utterly unsmiling that it makes his handsome face grim.


	3. one definition of punk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charles is making new friends. Uh-oh.

He's noticeable, and people watch him, and he seems accepted to some degree in more than one gang, while moving fluidly between them, not fully inducted into any but with enough friends and allies in most –- not the white power guys, maybe –- that no-one troubles to mess with him. Out of all the thousands of men in here, Charles has even caught his name, last night or the previous night in the mess hall. Erik, Erik Lehnsherr is his name.

And now, Erik Lehnsherr says – to the guy who's already addressed him, not to Charles, because it's simultaneously like it's all about Charles, and like Charles doesn't even exist, here - “Yeah, I got something to say. I got my eye on him, what's he to you? He owe you for something? He's your property? Because otherwise, I've got my own plans, and if it makes no difference to you I'd just as soon you didn't mark him up so he ain't so pretty.”

There's a brief pause, like the fact that he's staking his claim has to be digested and considered a moment. Then it's the short-ass at the front, the one who started the whole thing with his bit of 'ivory', who's the first to comment. “Yeah, and says who, Lehnsherr? What claim you got, why should we give him up, when Beast could make nice coin hiring his ass out to anyone who's interested and shows willing to stump up and get down, huh?”

The deepest chills immediately zing up, ricochet back down Charles' spine. He'd expected a prison term to be a horror story, had tried to mentally prepare himself. But something like that. He's shaking as he forces himself to stand, prays that his legs will hold him. And he's aware that several members of the gang are watching him as he wobbles like a baby deer on legs that are unsteady. Even if running was a good idea right now, Charles isn't sure that he'd be capable of it. And as he's struggling, this guy, this Lehnsherr, is responding. “First of all,” he says, and oh, his voice is like chips of ice on a football field wound, “was I speaking to you?” He points at the short-ass, who gets red in the face, takes a step forward, and then appears to think better of it and freezes. The look he's getting from Lehnsherr, hard and flinty, might have something to do with it. “Organ grinders and monkeys, dude,” he says harshly, like he can't even be assed to give the whole phrase to this loser. “I'm talking to Beast here,” he says, and he nods at the tattooed man. “Since he's the boss of you. Or you want to argue that, huh?”

“Well then, talk,” Beast says. He has mean eyes, like slits in a puffy blue face that's more like a slab of wobbling meat than anything human. But he's giving Lehnsherr air-time and his attention, which suggests a measure of tolerance or respect that Charles can only envy, at this point. Although he doesn't seem like a man blessed with a long attention-span or a lot of patience.

But that doesn't seem to put this Lehnsherr off his stride or disturb his equilibrium. He even pauses a moment before he speaks, and when he does his voice is calm. “Beast, you owe me three favours,” he says, and counts them off his fingers. “One, I did what was necessary to keep it quiet when the screws nearly stumbled over your incoming delivery, back in January. I didn't get asked and I wasn't even in on the deal: I was just there and I kept it all from going south. Two, I got you the supplies you needed for your little horticulture deal. You know what I'm talking about.” They clearly exchange some significant eye contact, and then Lehnsherr adds, “And the purification vat, too. How's the distilling schedule going, Mickey?” He addresses this to a weaselly-looking spectacled guy in back of the group, and the guy nods back at him and clicks his teeth, which appears to qualify as an answer.


	4. with a flattering word

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A deal's being struck. You wouldn't even know that Charles was involved, except he's _right there._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from The Ballad of Reading Gaol, Oscar Wilde.

That seems to be the sum of the balance sheet between the two of them, and Lehnsherr folds his arms when he's totted it up, cocks his head on one side and raises an eyebrow at the thicker, broader, heavier guy, like he's awaiting his response with interest. And Beast just looks back at him, stares, with his face close to impassive, but a little bit irritated, definitely a little bit of irritation in there. Charles could shiver in the silence, could break apart with it. And he wonders if this is the moment that he should be quietly easing, creeping away. Except that they're all right there, and where is he going to go? His legs are still wobbly. And whatever the outcome here, the sooner he knows the verdict himself, the better. He has a feeling it's nothing he wants to get blindsided with later, whatever it might be.

“So, what?” Beast asks, after visibly chewing it over a moment. “What you want to do about it, man? We were there first, man. You suggesting you have some kind of prior claim here? Or what?”

And Lehnsherr spreads his hands out peaceably, with a slight smile on his hard handsome face. “Nope, not trying to butt in that way. You saw him first, you got there first, I'm not trying to get a foot on your turf here, B. Just pointing out: you got something I want, and you owe me. If you felt like clearing the debt and balancing the books.”

Charles feels a cold sweat break out all over his body, and he's actually getting the shakes. Good luck to himself if he felt like running: he'd probably fall over if he tried to take a step. It's probably the effects of being discussed, right in front of himself, as if he was a product or a piece of meat, being growled and argued over by two big dogs. The feeling is called helplessness.

And Beast rubs his chin, never casts a glance Charles' way, but just says to Lehnsherr, “You sure about this, dude? I mean about cashing in all your chips and calling in every favor you got, regarding you and me? Because bear in mind there's no backsies on it, once you done it. We're back to zero, you need sum'thin or require a favor, then it's _you_ owing _me_ even if I decide to help you out, not you calling in anything you're owed. You sure you want to go for this?”

And Lehnsherr nods, and turns – for the first time – to take a look at Charles. Up until now, Charles has only seen him at a distance, and briefly even then.


End file.
